Towards 'That Time of Year'.

In my research on spiders, it being that time of year when male spiders are on the lookout for females and, in what has turned out to be a vain effort to achieve tolerating them through familiarity (which has singularly failed), I have been looking at information on Cellar Spiders.  You know those spindly creatures with tiny bodies and long legs.   They often hang there quivering with excitement at the thought of their next meal.   I find I can just about accept them so it seemed a good place to start.

Apparently a million people in the UK are arachnophobes.  Which means I am one in a million, which is nice!  Apparently ‘it’s the way they look.’  Well yes, that could be it.  8 thin legs and unpredictable behaviour is off-putting on anything as far as I am concerned.  Strangely enough, I find them inoffensive in the garden.  They can skip merrily across my hands (admittedly in gardening gloves these days) (the hands not the spiders), tear across my feet and even, should they dare, start climbing up my trouser legs.  Not for long mind you.  I do, however, brush them off carefully rather than jumping up and down taking wild sweeps in the air.  Perhaps it is because I can accept them in the garden, which I consider to be their natural habitat, which we happen to be sharing.  However, in the house (even though they consider it to be their natural habitat) we are on opposite sides of the web so to speak.

Now I have been informed that spiders do not wish to hurt you and are just seeking the shade.  This is logical.  I can believe this.  However, logic goes out of the window when a shade seeking missile, obviously one that has been practising for gold, aims straight for you and ignores completely all the other shady places en route.

There are about 600 different species of spider in the UK, and 8 of them are house spiders. In the garden you more easily come across a wide variety of spiders of different sizes and colours.  This worries me not.    In fact the range is quite interesting.  It is possible to crouch there watching them and even wondering where they might be off to.  Of course, even there, it is better if they wandering away rather than towards.

In the house it is a different matter.  I have become better over the years at tackling them.  The ones I carefully remove wrapped in a cloth are bigger than they used to be.  I draw the line at those monstrous things that thunder over the carpet towards you.  I remember well the time I was sitting on the floor watching television when ‘the beast’ emerged and headed straight for me.  The spider shot up the fire surround, missing me, as I was jumping onto the sofa.  It was touch and go who reached the highest point.  I hang there momentarily quivering.  Which brings me, rather cleverly, back to cellar spiders.  It appears that these spiders enjoy being in cellars, obviously, but also any undisturbed place. 

This troubles me and indicates I am spending too much time in the garden and not enough with the fluffy duster.